Honesty and Integrity: Lorelei Cole

We consider our what we do a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Lorelei Cole.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Lorelei Cole you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior as the acceptance of an assignment that is contingent on "the reporting of a pre-determined result (e.g., opinion of value)," "a direction in assignment results that favors the cause of the client," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Lorelei Cole, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.